CCK08: All improv, all the time

In which a metaphor gets stretched to the breaking point and the need for autotelism is implied.

Stephen Downes made a comment in passing during last Wednesday morning’s Elluminate session on Connective Knowledge that caught my attention– something to the effect that the course had elicited more emotion than one would ever expect a course in this topic to generate.

For me, this is no surprise at all, because the nature of open learning means that things are not scripted. Traditional roles have not been cast and emoting all over the place is a consequence of this. (Authoritarianism has its downside, but does keep public hand–and neck–wringing to a minimum.)

Gladiators in the arena

This “course” leaves a lot of room for stumbling around on the stage; there are lots of actors in search of a script here. We seem to range from those wanting Shakespeare in the original to those who are primed for half-hour episodes of “Whose Line is it Anyway?” (And maybe a few think gladiators in the arena provide the best entertainment.)

I’d say that in CCK08, or in an age of open education, we’re in a show that’s more like all improv, all the time.

After a lifetime of working from a script, as most of us have chosen or theoretically have been required to do, improv is a pretty big leap. We’re not going to be very good at it until we’ve done it for a while. And recent mainstream culture hasn’t been very accommodating toward improvisational creativity (or learning), either. Improvisation tends to take refuge in the margins, on small stages and in jazz or performance art. Improvisation, at least within a group, is not in sync with a culture that is essentially competitive. Group improv is not even collaborative endeavor, either; it is a cooperative one.

This is not Kumbayah around the campfire. Cooperation is hard work, needing to accommodate a lot of variables and nuances and drawing on a range of cognitive and emotional skills.

And so while we’re all practicing, there undoubtedly will be some bloopers that would be bleeped in prime time.

A second implication of the search for a script, or at least some stage direction, also piqued my curiosity. My initial thought was that if any group was ready to tackle undefined scenes from a hat, it would be the one attracted to the implications of connectivism and open learning. Then again, many very good improv actors are not formally trained in theater, but that’s a different conversation.

Clustering sheep: a network oxymoron, or simply one more open learning challenge?

It is true that improv is not quite the wildly uncontrolled activity that it may sometimes appear to be. There are conventions (listening, connecting ideas, even– especially– the weird ones, and scaffolding each other toward the emergent “end of the story”) that have to be respected by improvisational players in order for them to succeed at this business of play. To belabor the point: improv is not “a play” managed by a director; it’s “playing” that emerges from each individual actor’s locus of control, imagination, and creativity.

Open learning, like CCK08, offers a backstage filled with props, a really (really) big studio space, and some rehearsal time, all of which, my actor friends assure me, are usually very hard to come by. The search for a director and a script… well, I can’t help but think this part isn’t really about the show.